


The Ghostly Burdens of Alexithymia

by 100xGrounder



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100xGrounder/pseuds/100xGrounder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m sorry, Raven.” I whisper to her. All I can bring to her is peril and destruction. No matter where I go, death follows and I can’t guide death to her. There is a tongueless conversation carried between our eyes. Like the way two dying souls can communicate without even saying anything. Deja vu courses through my veins and I remember. Raven’s my friend. Raven’s always been a friend. And though we fight and bite back in ways only enemies could, we’re friends. No bullet, poison or betrayal could ever change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Judas

**Author's Note:**

> So this may sound familiar. My inspiration was lit from S1E7 (I think 7) when Lincoln is tortured for the antidote to save Finn and Octavia injures herself in order to extract the information from Lincoln. Although . . . I switched up all the roles. Lincoln being Murphy. Finn being Clarke. Octavia being Raven. And Bellamy being none other than Bellamy. :) Enjoy! Feedback and Reviews inspire me beyond limits!

I see weakness in their countless attempts to try to control me. In the way they claim authority over me, as if I'm some psychotic fool in need of discipline. Well, I hope they're happy now. I've been physically constrained by two three-inch thick chains clasped onto my wrists, creating blotchy purple-ish bruises against my pulsing veins. They act like this changes things, the way they speak to me. As if I have to spill everything just because of their mere advantage of limiting my freedom. What they don't know is that my freedom (or lack thereof) doesn't grow from tangible restraints or being constrained by a certain exertion of physical strength. Free to move isn't free to live. It's simply being able to run or hide from your problems, maybe even distract yourself from your problems. They haven't changed anything. Hauling my heavily drugged body into the dropship and cuffing my hands and feet won't force me to talk.  
Clarke will die; they can't change that.  
"Which one!" Bellamy demands. I don't answer. "I said 'Which one!'" He shouts, only mere inches away from my face. He pants on the limited oxygen in this room, desperate to save his princess.  
"Face it, Bellamy." I say. "She’s dying. There's nothing you can do to save her." My words have somehow shifted his entire demeanor, triggered something, maybe. He's not spiteful or inflamed with anger. I can almost see fear in his eyes. Fear of losing her. Fear of having to live a murderous life. Knowing he's the one who let her die. But that's good for him, he needs to know what the fault of murder feels like. I need him to know what it feels like . . . To lose someone he loves. Besides, Clarke deserves this. I should've poisoned her the first day we landed on the ground. Would've saved everyone a lot of trouble. Nobody needs her, she pretends to be leader, she acts like she's their queen. She can go to hell for all I care.  
Bellamy rips open my skin with his knife. I can feel the rusty metal dragging through my body. He torments me with it, slowly slicing it across my ribs. My vision blurs and my head feels too heavy but I don't dare give him the satisfaction of knowing he's causing me pain. My wounds sting and my body shakes. He's been torturing me for the antidote for hours, now. Pulling on the chains, holding me back, I feel my wrists pulverize under the old and bloody, metal cuffs. My ankles are numb and bleeding from my attempts to escape this cruel and unholy torture.  
"Give me the antidote!" He shouts, as he steps closer to me. He holds something that looks like a metal spear, electricity courses through it. "Don't make me do this." He threatens.  
"I'm not scared of you, Bellamy."  
"Dammit, Murphy!" He pounds his fist on the wall in sheer anger and frustration. "She'll die! I need to save her!" He begs. I take pleasure in seeing him this way. No longer masked with a good life or a burdenless love for Clarke. She will die, he will suffer and I . . . I will most likely be hanged for her death. That's all I could really ask for, though. A quick and easy death. For so long, it seems fate basks in the knowledge of my end. Always throwing me on death's threshold just to then be miraculously healed. Again and again, the process takes its route, each time worse than the previous. But stronger and stronger I become with each agonizing new day of pain and depression.  
He thrusts the electric spear into my side and I cry out in pain. My screams echo throughout the spacious room, Bellamy doesn't give up. We used to be friends. That’s long over, now.  
I can barely see, but I can hear someone else in the room, now. Raven? I only pick up bits and pieces of her words to Bellamy.  
"Too much blood." She says. "Seizing." I hear. He runs downstairs to see Clarke, I imagine she's only minutes from dying by now. The poison has been coursing through her blood for half the day. It's a slow and painful way to die; the memory of her death, though, will live on forever in his mind. That's exactly what I wanted from this. Raven's eyes glance from Bellamy, already gone and out of sight, towards my shaking and bleeding body. I don't know what she's thinking. Probably wants me to die for killing her friend. But there's something else I see in the way her face is so still. Her mouth is ever so slightly open, eyebrows furrowed; pity. She pities me. She looks over towards the knife Bellamy had been using and back to the scars left on my body. I feel cold, all of a sudden; exposed, chills run down my spine. I want to cover my scars, all of them. The new and the old, there are too many to count, they embrace my figure, cover my skin. They're signs, memories . . . Reminders of who I am. An ugly murderer, a lying, cunning, filthy monster; one with too much of his own blood on his hands.  
She steps closer, studying each and every scrape, scratch and cut. Some from being tortured by the Grounders, others from the ire of Bellamy and his militia, some are from being stranded out in the wilderness for so long. Few are my doing. From nights when it seemed like the only way to relieve my pain. They all have a story. But why does she want to read these stories? Why is she looking at me like this? Why are there tears in her eyes, not just of panic and fear for Clarke's life but of compassion. Of sympathy. Of understanding my suffering, wanting to do something about it, stop it, maybe.  
"Take a picture. It'll last longer."  
"Shut up, Murphy!" She says. "Enough with your games. Tell me how to save her." Her demand is childish. She knows she won't get anything out of me. So why does she try? Why does she always think she can get me to talk, to open up to her? I think back to when we were dying together, right here, in this very room. She asked me why I was such a dick all the time. I ended up telling her some stupid sob story I told myself I'd take to my grave. She's looked at me differently, ever since. I don't like it. I feel weak around her. On the contrary, though, ever since that day, when we almost died, I feel closer to her. Like I can talk to her, tell her everything and she won't judge me. She won't go blabbing about it to everyone. I . . . I sometimes feel like, maybe I can . . . trust her.  
But I shouldn't. I can't trust anyone. It's my job to chamber the weakness and exercise the wrath, the pain, the strength. I can't let my walls down for her. That's how to get killed. I've learned that lesson too many times before. I don't care if she knows how I ended up being in solitary confinement for simply catching the flu and murdering my parents because of it. I don't care if she knows the world's secrets. I'm not going to let her get into my head.  
I remain silent while she waits for an answer she knows she'll never get. She sighs and turns towards the wall of weapons.  
"Torturing me won't change anything." I tell her.  
"I'm not going to torture you." She says, her back turned to me. She picks up the tall, clear bottle of poison I used in Clarke's drink this morning and unscrews the lid. She wavers it below her lips, hesitating to take a sip.  
"Raven, don't!" I warn her. She holds her stare with mine, her eyes are so green. They burn with emerald beauty. She's scared, though. I know she doesn't want to drink the poison; but she's Raven. She'll do anything if it means saving another's life. I swallow, the room is silent. She takes a deep breath of air and raises the bottle up to her mouth.  
Her eyes are closed, tightly as she gulps down the poisonous liquid. The fumes make her eyes water as she chokes on the substance.  
"Please, stop!" I beg her. She lowers the bottle and looks up at me, gaging.  
"What is this!?" She chokes on the strong, bitter fumes entering her lungs.  
"Poison, Raven! It's poison!" I shout. "You'll die!"  
"Then tell me where the antidote is!" She demands. I stutter on my words, I know what she's done. She knew I'd tell her where the antidote was if she drank the poison. No. I tell myself. I can't let her get to me. This is weakness. I don't care if she lives or dies. "Murphy, which one?" She says, desperately, as she struggles to stand on her own. Her heavy breaths scare me, it'll be my fault if she dies. When she dies. Not hearing any response from me, she takes another swig of the poison. Gulp after gulp, she downs the whole thing as I scream and beg for her to stop. I jerk on the thick chains, holding me back from her. Pulling on the restraints, I rip out the bolts from the wall and free my right hand.  
"Raven!"  
She collapses onto the cold, metal floor and I realize, as the silence fills the air, she's not breathing. In my panicked haste I call out to Bellamy through the floor. No answer.  
"Bellamy!" I shout again. The hatch in the floor opens and I see him climbing up the ladder.  
"What?" He asks, then sees Raven's unconscious body, collapsed on the floor. "What the hell did you do to her!" He yells, racing over towards her.  
"She drank the poison." I say, my body trembling in fear and shock. "She wouldn't stop, she drank the whole thing. I- I never wanted her to drink it, I swear. Please, please, just help her!"  
"The antidote, Murphy, where's the antidote?" Bellamy asks.  
"I- I don't-" I can't find the words to say. Horror and regret overwhelm my entire mind and I can't focus on anything other than Raven's motionless body, slumped on the ground in front of me. I killed her. I killed her. I killed-  
"Murphy!" He shouts. I run my fingers through the fringe of my hair, hanging in my face.  
"There isn't an antidote." I finally say.


	2. Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murphy flees, finding hopeful shelter in an unexpected place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! Yay! There is still lots more to come, I'm writing everyday and will post the third chapter soon!

Tiny cursive letters are written all over my forehead. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. A thousand times, I wish I could say the words to her. But it will never suffice. She won’t wake up, the rhythm of her faint heartbeat barely drums as I lean over her still body. She looks so dead. So pale. So emotionless. She, along with Clarke, have been lying here, inactive, for two days while Bellamy and the others have been searching for the antidote.  
I told them all I know: I woke up one day locked up in a smelly cage, I’d been tied up and beaten unconscious. The mountain men had one mission for me. Kill Clarke. They gave me the poison and told me if I didn’t do it, they’d kill me. So why not? I hated Clarke. They hated Clarke. We both wanted her dead. And who knows what else they’d try if I refused to poison her. After they’d kill me, how far would they go in order to kill Clarke. Drop bombs on the entire camp? Take hostages? Start exterminating our people one by one until they get Clarke, herself? What choice did I really have? I wasn’t thinking. No, I never think.  
But I never intended for it to come this far. The entire camp is ablaze with fear and shock. The rumors fly through their ears, death threats for me, I suppose. Everyone wants to save her. But what about Raven? What about the one who was innocent and never supposed to get hurt. She was never supposed to drink it and it’s all my fault. If I had simply told her I didn’t know what the antidote was, she wouldn’t have drunken it. I could have prevented all of this. Looking back on my choices, now, I find nothing but regret. It’s my fault. All of it. Everything always has been. I’m a killer, a traitor, a demon. I’ve come from hell to destroy every good heart left on this planet. I’m counting all the possibilities of me being unhuman. I’m dangerous, I’m an outcast. I can’t bare to see Raven die for something I did. For her to take the penalty for my actions.  
I fondle with a thin lock of Raven’s hair, imagining what she’s dreaming about right now. Maybe physics or chemistry. Maybe Finn. Maybe the sight of me in front of her, as I watch her down the whole bottle of poison without debate.  
“I’m sorry, Raven.” I whisper to her. And I realize it’s the first time I’ve said that in years, maybe a decade. But she deserves an apology, she deserves the world. All I can bring to her is peril and destruction. No matter where I go, death follows and I can’t guide death to her.  
Clarke, maybe. Hell, who doesn’t want her dead? I mean, never mind. Just- never mind. Point is: Clarke can die, Bellamy can be tortured by the Grounders, all of Camp Jaha can scream and grieve and kill me for what I’ve done but I won’t let Raven suffer any longer. First, I crippled her for life, then I stood by watching as her boyfriend killed eighteen innocent lives, thus getting him murdered. And finally, my arrogant self-importance has caused her to bring herself to hell’s threshold just to escape the suffering I’ve caused for her. I’ve issued her too much trouble for all that she’s done for this camp.  
I cross the open, empty floor of the Ark and step out into the icy night air. The moons shines overhead and lights up my path toward the vacant forest. My only option, now is to flee.   
*******  
I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’m headed, I don’t know who I’ll encounter on my way. But it’s hot; really hot. Sweat pours down my face as I pull my pack higher up on my shoulders. I struggle to continue walking in this blazing heat. It’s nighttime. Why is it so damn hot!? I swear I can hear bats sizzling above me, in the midnight atmosphere.  
I remove my jacket and stuff it in my pack while I decide to sit down for a few minutes. The knife wounds underneath my shirt still feel new. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since Bellamy started torturing me for the antidote and since then I’ve managed to not only kill Clarke, but kill Raven in the process AND run away from the entire scene without so much as a note goodbye. The guilt weighs on me heavier as I think about Raven lying allay on that old, rusty, metal bed, no one by her side, no one trying to save her. Only Clarke. The princess must come first. No one thinks of the mechanic, the girl who worked her ass off just to make the camp extra bullets . . . The girl who I shot because she was trying to save her friend. The girl who was willing to be blown to pieces just to get that damn bomb near grounder territory. She’s done way more than Clarke has in order to save her people.  
I’d deem her princess any day. But then again, who cares what I think. I’m John Murphy, murderer, criminal, traitor, all around camp threat. The list goes on and on. Here I am praying for Raven to survive when for all I know she could be plotting to kill me once she awakens. She hates my guts. She’s tried to kill me, twice, actually. Who’s to say she won’t try a third time? And I shouldn’t be thinking about her, or Clarke. Or even Bellamy and his posse. The mountain men are close. The reapers are close. I’m vulnerable to any and everything trying to kill me.  
Mosquitoes buzz all around my head, squirrels scurry past me. I still think I can hear bats . . . Maybe it’s just my imagination. Whatever. Time to get up. Time to move on. I wince, standing up and trying to endure the incinerating pain of the gashes and electricity burns. I remind myself: Get up. Move on. Get up. Move on.  
About twenty minutes later, constant walking (which is more like staggering and collapsing) and seldom sips of water, for fear of running out. When suddenly, I come across (fall on top of) something metal. I lurch down and sweep away the dried leaves. A door . . . A door? A door that leads where?  
Without hesitation, my curiosity gets the best of me. Shelter. Please be shelter. I wish, silently, as a howl erupts from far off in the distance. I lift open the hatch and find nothing but darkness and an old, precarious step ladder. Climbing down, I encounter a string hanging from a lightbulb and pull it, thus enlightening the musty bunker. I remember, now. I remember Finn being down here; when he shot the grounder, silence filled the air as we all looked behind us in horror. Smoke drifting up from the gun and into the moldy air. The man lied dead, blood dripping from his hair, I’d never seen a colder look in Finn’s eyes before. I sit down on the stiff mattress, bordering the wall and take a deep breath.   
Guess I’ll be sleeping here tonight. Don’t see any better options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be continued


	3. Zion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ghost of hope and a promise of strength.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! It took me a day and a half to write this. lol. Tell me what you all think! I really hope you enjoy this fic, I put every bit of my little murven-filled heart into it!

Winds, stronger than I could even imagine, take flight above me. They rip down trees and slaughter innocent animals. The bunker is stronger, though. I huddle up inside a thin blanket, trying not to think about what I’ve done. Just as I start to doze off, in pitch blackness . . . I hear a loud clunk. Another. A third. Suddenly the wind is much louder and I realize the door has been torn open. I whip my head around and run to close it, when I find not only has the door been opened; but there is someone standing in front of me. I can barely make out who it is. I fear the worst. Reaper, maybe. Although, seeing as they haven’t attacked me I can rule that out. I squint and find what might be. . . Octavia? No.  
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “There’s a storm, you could’ve been killed or- Who am I kidding, you know the dangers of the ground, you can fend for yourself.”  
“Good to see you, too. I’m fine, by the way, no need to worry . . .” I hear Raven’s voice, but my mind doesn’t catch up. I rush up the ladder, close the door and yank the string hanging from a lightbulb. The room becomes bright, once again and I find Raven standing in front of me.   
Raven.  
And she’s alive.  
Standing there.  
I want to say something. Anything. But what? What do you say to someone you almost killed twenty-four hours prior? I’m sorry, maybe? I’m glad you’re alive? I can’t say that, that’s so lame. How did she even- No, this must be a hallucination. I haven’t rested in hours, haven’t eaten . . . “Whoa, dude, why the face? You looked like a reaper’s just approached you.” Anything. Say anything. Move, at least.  
“Raven.” I say, decrepitly. “I- I thought you were . . .”  
“Dead? This girl?” She smiles, proudly. “Yeah, right. Even you can’t hurt me.”  
“How are you- I mean, how did you- Why did you come here?” I ask. “No, wait, why did drink the poison?” There are too many questions I have for her.  
“I’d rather not talk about that pitiful part of my day. Not feeling too cheerful about it.” I roll my eyes, but I can’t help but smile.  
“How are you even alive?” I stare at her in wonderment. “Last I saw you, you were-   
“Bellamy found the thingy that cured us, me and Clarke, that is.” She says, sauntering toward a chair. “But that’s not how I survived.” There’s a sparkle in her eyes as she waits for me to ask. I sigh and decide to play along.  
“Just tell me.” I beg, still not fully interpreting that she is here. In the bunker. With me.  
Alive.  
“Please, you think I didn’t knew there wasn’t an antidote?” She takes a seat, half laughing, half grunting from the pain in her leg. The leg I impaired.  
“I have my ways of dodging bullets. Do you really believe I’d drink POISON without a backup plan!? Anyway, by the time Bellamy had found a cure, I was already awake and raring to get the day started.” She smiled, I smiled along with her. It could only be Heaven’s mercy that gave me her, again. “Damn, this poison really destroys your appetite.” I roll my eyes at her. Really? She’s thinking about food? She looks over toward me, silent now. There is a tongueless conversation carried between our eyes. Like the way two dying souls can communicate without even saying anything. Deja vu courses through my veins and I remember. Raven’s my friend.  
Raven’s always been a friend. And though we fight and bite back in ways only enemies could, we’re friends. No bullet, poison or betrayal could ever change that.  
“Do you know what the worst part of my day was, though?” She adds, lounging her feet on top of the mattress. I sit down next to her feet, raising my eyebrow in question. “Not finding you, next to me, when I woke up.” Her voice is lower, now. Weighed down by deplore. “I mean, sure you’re kinda the one who caused me to drink that vile liquid.” She shudders at the memory of it. “But why did I have to discover that you’d left me? Left camp. Ran away, alone, at midnight.” She drops her head into her palm and breaks eye contact. “You could’ve . . .”  
“I know,” I mumble.  
“Then why did you?” She breaks in, uneasily. I want to say: I don’t know. I want to say: It’s was a decision made on a whim. I want to say nothing at all. Instead I say:  
“It’s part of who I am.” It’s the most honest answer I can think of. Separating’s been forcefully penned into the feeble pages of my history; my blood is 100% outcast and criminal. Thus, making it the only option. “All my life,” I recount, staring at a curved crack in the cement wall. “I’ve been neglecting people who neglected me. People leave me to find safety. Away from the danger that started it all . . . I hurt you.” I admit. “So I . . .” A pause. “I left you.” A silence fills the air as I wait for her to say something. What I didn’t expect was:  
“You idiot.” She emphasizes, stunned, letting her feet fall from the mattress. She rises from her seat, her brace causing her to waver for a moment. “I don’t want to live . . .” She says, sitting down on my lap and facing me. “ . . . if I can’t live by you.” Her malachite green irises captivate me with an nameless curiosity.  
Trying to emerge from the buried forgotten has always been a skyscraper far beyond my reach. The collected fragments of time had worn away my soul, never to recover, again. Hope was lost and love was nothing but a made-up Hollywood ending. Over cliched and pointless. But with her, here, like this. I find nothing but the memory of ecstasy overflowing my mind. I forget the torment. I forget the pain. I forget what it feels like to be stripped of everything you once called home, to be locked up in a cage and then sent to die on a planet that hates you.  
She shapes her soft hands around my face and pulls me closer until our foreheads touch. Her delicate eyelashes flutter like angel wings as she closes her eyes and whispers: “I want you, John Murphy.” Our lips meet; slow, investigatory. She wraps her legs around my torso, urging to get closer. I enlace my arms around her waist in response. We embrace in nothing but the hope of survival, wishing for only the warmth the other’s lips provide. Savoring the taste of cherries, dripping off her lips, I pull her on top of me until we’re lying flat on the stiff and rippled mattress. She smiles against my teeth, I pull back.  
“I don’t want to cause you more hurt, Raven.” I add, still unequipped for commitment.  
“Promise you’ll never leave me.” She interrupts, boldly. As Raven always is. Bold, strong, powerful and confident. “Promise me, Murphy. I can’t loose you.” Her elbow rests near the side of my head, her other hand lays on my chest. My heart reverberates against her skin, her fingers move in response to the loud beat, beat, beat.  
And at last, I get it, now. As I gaze into her intense green eyes with assurance, I know there’s no reason to be afraid.  
Running away from trouble had always been a medicine for me. A remedy to hide my aching wounds. A bandage for the lost desire to be freed. But I don’t have to let the doubt of a promise drown me. I don’t have to protect myself from the threat of losing yet another piece of my heart. I don’t need to fall asleep terrified of what might arrive in the morning light for fear of unwanted change.  
I’ve found my cure. I’ve found my new prescription drug. She’s my weapon against hostile despair. And I’m certain. She’s an eternity of grace and passion and safety.   
I’m danger and she’s my safety. I could never want anything more than that.

“I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.  
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> 2nd chapter coming soon! (within a week, I guess)


End file.
